Elon Musk takes a jab at Tesla’s competitors
Musk is happy to share Tesla’s EV supercharging network — but he’s far from worried about the competition.
Tesla made waves throughout the auto industry in May when the company announced a partnership with Ford (F) – Get Free Report that would grant the legacy competitor access to Tesla’s supercharging network. A slew of similar partnerships came in the following weeks, from the likes of General Motors (GM) – Get Free Report, Rivian (RIVN) – Get Free Report and Volvo (VOLAF) .
In the spirit of helping his competitors make the difficult shift to electric (and autonomous) vehicles, Musk said on Tesla’s earnings call in July that Tesla (TSLA) – Get Free Report is “very open” to additionally licensing its Full Self-Driving technology, adding that the company was in talks with a major original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to do so.
“We’re not trying to keep this to ourselves. We’re more than happy to license it to others,” Musk said, though an announcement of an official partnership with this unnamed OEM has yet to materialize.
But even with all these helping hands, Musk doesn’t think legacy automakers will be able to adjust to the new era of cars quickly enough.
Agreeing with a user who said that legacy car companies are “about to have their Kodak Moment,” Musk noted that some companies “understand, but their pace of change is nonetheless slow.”
“Tesla is trying to be as helpful to other carmakers as possible with the transition to autonomous electric vehicles: we open source our patents, provide access to our Superchargers and have invited them to license our self-driving AI system.”
This statement comes as the EV market is expanding in a way that has forced automakers, including Tesla, to sacrifice margins in the name of ever-competitive price-cuts. Legacy automakers, according to Reuters, are losing money on most of their EV models, despite ramping up production and delivery of these same models.
Meanwhile, unsold EVs are stacking up at dealerships across the country, according to Cox Automotive.
“Price cuts do show that we’re in sort of an equilibrium of demand and supply and price so when sales aren’t there, they’re going to be dropping price,” Mark Wakefield, co-head of consultancy AlixPartners’ automotive practice told Reuters. “Tesla in particular has the room to do that.”